Embarkation Day has finally arrived. Two years of anticipation, weeks of planning and days of packing and unpacking, we are finally ready for Embarkation Day. Two years of anticipation, weeks of planning and days of packing and unpacking, we are finally ready to board our ship…35 cruises which includes some b2b (Back to Back cruises) or more on a few different cruises lines-we sleep around. Nothing prepared us for the chaos/riot/zoo of boarding Celebrity Constellation in Civitavecchia, Italy…and we have had some pretty wild experiences, but this one wins hands down. It replaces being Shanghaied in China as number one. The port is about 90 minutes from the center of Rome…our Italian driver that spoke almost no English, made it in 70 minutes. Guess he had aspersions of being a race car driver. Glad I did not need to go the the bathroom. With all the cruises that originate from Civitavecchia, I was under the impression it was a well oiled machine. Silly, me. There was one other cruise ship in port, Celebrity Ascent. Being newer and bigger, it took the normal cruise port berth…guess it is only one ship a day kind of port. Our ship was assigned to a make shift area, inside the industrial port, between the Korean car carrier that was being unloaded and the Banana boat. Throw in a couple of cargo vessels and you have our destination. We had secured our limo (yes, you know our Eddie, Limo, it is) with the requirement that it was permitted to go into the port. Another rookie error, no inside the port permit for your transport. There were tons of folks dragging their luggage from the port gates to the ship dodging off loading cars and bananas. Not it. A failure to plan is a plan to fail. We have done the drag your four suitcases to a port terminal 2 blocks away before. I was patting myself on my back as we were dropped in front of the temporary embarkation bubble. If this had been our first cruise, it might have been our last. I think my toes were run over by several motorized scooters. I learned a whole lot of Italian, English, German, French cuss words. Eddie found an angry nest of cane wielding mouth breathers that told him to move the f*ck out of the way. Wow! I guess it true what they say about people over a certain age…no filters. There was no one in charge, no signs, and 1,500 passengers that came early for their boarding time slots that were suppose to be coming over the next 3 hours…the other 300 were on ship as they were b2b folks. Talk about fun. At least our luggage arrived early afternoon. Our traveling companions had one of their suitcases confiscated for contraband. It took 5 hours to retrieve it, it was almost an international incident. They have a sticker covered suitcase, and no explanation what the contraband might have been. These folks are strict rule obeyers. The male half of our cruising friends is also an Ed, he does not find humor in these travel moments….he makes Covid Karen look like a novice. I kept looking for the defibrillator on the ship…and was googling the you tube video on how to use it. 24 hours later, no clue on what the contraband was. I am not sure Ed-2 will get over it. He is still chewing on that piece of bubble gum…hard to let things go for sure.
In cruising there are port intensive cruises-a port every day and/or cruises like this 6 days in ports, and the rest (10) are days at sea. The staff and crew have to work hard to create moments and experiences on board ship on those 10 days. Before leaving we signed up (and prepaid) for a Steak Tartare Hands on class the morning of our first at sea day. 10:15…and raw meat, hmmm. Eddie is a big fan of Steak Tartare…me, not so much, but sure, I will give it a go, it is all about the Experiences. The start time was 10:15, but we had to arrive 30 minutes ahead of time to complete yet another health form and waiver. We were instructed to wear only long pants, closed toed shoes, no tank tops. The waiver was kind of like the one you sign when you go white water rafting. Lots of initial here, no filming, throwing knives and you had to be over 6 to participate. Wow, legal really wanted to cover the various bases on this one. Makes one wonder what made this necessary. At 10:15 after giving everyone a glass of champagne, the 9 adults were invited to wash our hands, and don french cooking hats and aprons (no, we did not get to keep them) and assumed our positions behind the 9 cutting board. We were given the recipe, but each station had all of our ingredients measured out in front of us. Our rather large raw filet was on the cutting board, with our cutting glove and rather sharp big knife…waiver and champagne should not have been in same sentence here. Our chef led us through the various steps, to complete the recipe. Still not sure why we could not wear capris or shorts. Closed toed shoes, understand that one..Knife dropping and all…the “no photos” was not observed…as we all took pictures of each other in our chef attire. We completed our experience by sitting down and enjoying what we had prepared. Raw meat is the ultimate ice breaker. Oh yeah, the reference to horses...Ed-2 response to our Steak Tartare class when we told them our plans was “you know, in Europe, they use Horse Meat to make Steak Tartare”. Was that in the waiver? Must have been the champagne.
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